Trump's deals with Big Law are shakedowns in ‘pro bono' clothing
As a seasoned legal marketing consultant, I urge the media to stop whitewashing President Trump's shake-down of Big Law firms as 'pro bono legal services.'
Simply put, Trump's barrage of executive orders, which have extracted almost $1 billion in free work from prominent law firms and lawyers whom he regards as enemies, is extortion for personal legal services credits for the president, or for anyone he chooses. Further, they may create conflicts that could provide additional personal benefits for him in the future.
This unbilled, free work does not qualify as 'pro bono services,' as described by Trump's minions and the managing partners, who are cowering at this threat and misrepresenting their justifications.
According to the American Bar Association, 'pro bono' comes from the Latin pro bono publico, which means 'for the public good.' The ABA's Model Rules of Professional Conduct advises that lawyers should render without fee 'at least 50 hours of pro bono legal services per year, emphasizing that these services be provided to people of limited means or nonprofit organizations that serve the poor.'
'The rule recognizes that only lawyers have the special skills and knowledge needed to secure access to justice for low-income people, whose enormous unmet legal needs are well documented,' the ABA adds.
In aspiring to become the supreme monarch in charge of a vast fiefdom, Trump has turned some of the country's preeminent law firms — including Paul Weiss, Skadden Arps, Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins — into indentured servants that have chosen to place commercial security above protecting the rule of law.
Using the term 'pro bono' in this context is inaccurate, feeding Trump's fantasies of corrupting the legal profession. According to CBS News, during an April 10 Cabinet meeting, Trump told reporters that his administration may be using lawyers at the 'cooperating' firms to help agency heads because 'You're going to need a lot of lawyers.' Trump said he would 'try to use these very prestigious firms to help us out with the trade' — i.e., in brokering tariff deals with other countries.
Essentially, Trump is boasting, 'Hey, I got the big guns, and they're free! What a deal!'
News organizations continue to assist in this whitewash, consistently calling the thousands of free hours 'pro bono' work, not shakedown freebies. Let's call this what it is: a tithe forced via threats and blackmail. The settlements Trump has struck to date have nothing to do with the type of honorable pro bono work the legal profession embraces — the use of honed skills to protect constitutional rights and the under-represented.
The law firms agreeing to pervert the rule of law are as corrupt as the man they now represent. They offer 'free services' (with possible tax benefits or write-offs) for a preferred partisan client or cause, violating the profession's ethical rules and standards.
I don't know any self-respecting lawyer who would agree to that deal, which expose these firms' values for what they are: inauthentic pablum crafted by a political agenda. These emperors have no clothes.
I have served as an interim chief marketing officer and communications expert to many top law firms. In planning, we always identify authentic values and their importance, which inform almost every strategy and operating decision. As a manager, my heart goes out to the professional staff tasked with performing communications antithetical to the values they signed on to, to the lawyers, and to the clients whose fees are now being used to bankroll these giveaway services prescribed by one man. They now must decide whether to continue working with the devil they don't know.
I have no idea how law students are going to feel about committing to work with hypocrites and spending their pro bono hours toiling away on possible illegal actions.
There will be many opportunities to 'rename' this suspect practice and call it anything other than 'pro bono' — perhaps 'Trump's Law' or 'Indentured Legal Service.' By mischaracterizing these representations as pro bono, news organizations (and the firms themselves) are complicit in letting the president frame the narrative.
Let's start by redefining these free services on command. They are not 'pro bono' but simply extortion in pro bono clothing.
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